[The basis of this article is a quoted paper, which is circling around in the so-called pro-scene for quite some time. In its title it says according to milo234, however the true authorship was not confirmed – negatively not and positively not.
The Practice of SGQ is the advanced technique of GQ, "guarded Q", that allowed an automated indirect tanking, which let your tanks in range of the enemy's attack multiple tanks without directly clicking 'attack' on them. The S refers to the STOP-key, which is included in the tanking-click-sequence. It's purpose was to gain better control of the group, keep it coordinated together. In the history of its discovery, many names have to be honourfully mentioned: N8Diaz, Green, Lovehandles, Blitz and others.
The quotation is marked ""..."", the origin is a loose textfile .docx and it was layouted for this purpose here.]
""...
The Milo234 Notes on GQ [and SGQ]
Last Updated: 2020-07-02 this needs an update
These notes could be better organized...
Many special thanks to NateDiaz for being the source of much of the information here.
Since returning to play Red Alert after not playing for 14 years, GQ has been the most exciting new thing since I stopped playing (caveat: apparently some people before my time playing previously knew about and used GQ but it was not widely known). This doc is an attempt to explain how to GQ with optimal technique.
Basic Idea
The basic idea behind GQ is as follows. Pressing G puts your tanks in guard mode. Once in guard mode, they will automatically pick a target to attack that is not too far away. They will even move towards the target to fire if necessary up to a limited distance. Once you have entered your tanks into guard mode, you can hold down Q and click on some empty (or non-empty with limitations) square. This will give your tanks a waypoint to move to. Like with regular Q you can give multiple waypoints if desired by holding down Q and clicking in multiple locations. As long as the waypoints are within range of the enemy target, the tanks will keep firing at the target while moving, thus allowing them to dodge some enemy shots and hopefully get an edge in battle. This is the basic idea, and there are a number of subtleties of the mechanics that are documented elsewhere, but they are unimportant for this guide on technique. TODO: Insert a link to that blog post on GQ.
When to GQ?
Before discussing how to GQ, knowing when to GQ vs when to just use regular Q should be considered. The short summary is that GQ should generally be preferred as the number of tanks in the battle gets larger. I don’t have an exact number of tanks determined at which point it becomes better to GQ, but 15 seems to be an often quoted number. With fewer tanks, regular Q should generally (with some exceptions) be used instead.
The main advantage of regular Q over GQ is that you can determine which enemy tank your tanks will target. With GQ, the targets that your tanks pick are chosen by the AI, possibly by picking at random any target within the guard range (note that the guard range is different from the firing range, and also note that only your tanks that are within range of the enemy fire which is important to keep in mind). With regular Q you will get more guns on a single enemy tank faster, and get the first kill faster because your fire power is more directed. Then you can pick off the next target. With small numbers this can be a more effective way to keep more total guns in the fight going. GQ has the potential to keep all of your tanks’ guns firing at once during a small numbers fight, but probably the advantage of the first kill is more useful in small numbers.
There are several advantages of GQ over regular Q as the number of tanks increases. The primary advantage is that you can get more of your tanks firing at once, and as the number of tanks in the battle goes up, this advantage becomes overwhelmingly important because it becomes impossible to target an individual tank that all of your tanks can shoot at the same time. This is the same reason that in large tank fights stacking is infinitely superior to Qing. Another advantage to GQ over regular Q is that it is easier to keep your tanks moving. With regular Q you have to spend valuable time targeting enemy tanks, and less time focusing on where to move your tanks, while with GQ all the focus is on positioning your tanks while they fire.
What about stacking? As it turns out, GQ done properly is significantly better than stacking, but it must be done properly. So if the opponent stacks, look at it as your big opportunity to get a free win. TODO: Make a video demonstrating this.
GQ is also incredibly helpful when defending rushes. More on that below.
How to GQ? Or rather, how to SGQ?
How to SGQ
The first non-obvious thing about how to properly use GQ is that you should use SGQ. So, what exactly is SGQ? SGQ is pressing S, then G, then simultaneously holding down Q and clicking on an empty square. S is the hotkey for stop. The reason that S is important is that it cancels any previous waypoints. When GQing, you will find yourself quickly setting one waypoint, then you will a couple seconds later want your tanks to move in a different direction. You will need to cancel the previous waypoint. Unfortunately just pressing G does not properly cancel the previous waypoint (based on experimentation, pressing G will sometimes cancel one of the currently queued waypoints but not all of them and not reliably). In order to cancel the previous waypoints so all your tanks move in the new direction, you must press S, otherwise not all of your tanks will move in the new direction. So get into the habit of always using SGQ.
Click-GQ - Prefer SGQ over Click-GQsg
A well-known alternative to SGQ is Click-GQ. What exactly is click-GQ? Click-GQ means clicking on an empty square (I have not tested this thoroughly, but her Nate Diaz’s comment, it is probably a good idea to double click when making this click), then pressing G, then simultaneously holding down Q and clicking on an empty square. The reason people want to use Click-GQ is that the click on the map to issue a move command will nullify the previous waypoints giving a similar effect to S. One might further think that clicking may keep more tanks in motion than pressing S and thus dodging fire, however this advantage isn’t significant in practice. Click-GQ is inferior to SGQ for a number of reasons. First, SGQ is faster to execute than Click-GQ. This is because it is much simpler to press S, then G, then Q+Click than to press Click-G-Q+Click. The amount of clicking you must do doubles and you must coordinate across two hands which is harder. Second, S is more effective at canceling the previous waypoints. Click-GQ does a better job of canceling previous waypoints than GQ alone, but it is not as effective at canceling the previous waypoints as S. Third SGQ allows you to have better focus on where you click to issue your Q waypoints. Having to focus on an empty square to click on to cancel the previous waypoints takes up valuable time and is slower than pressing SG then clicking again with Q.
How to Issue Q Waypoints and Physically Click
ONLY CLICK ON ONE PLACE WHEN ISSUING A Q WAYPOINT
CLICK MULTIPLE TIMES ON THE SAME SPOT
One common misconception surrounding Q/GQ is that it might be a good idea to issue multiple waypoints to different physical locations, say point A, then point B, then point C. The idea being that your tanks would fire while moving to A, then B, then C. This should not be done with regular Q or with GQ. With regular Q you just target an enemy tank, then hold Q and click on one location, repeat. With GQ, or SGQ to be more precise, you press SG, then hold Q and click on one location.
The next important thing about clicking when issuing Q waypoints is that you should click multiple times on the same exact location while holding down Q. I think that double clicking is usually sufficient (though maybe triple or quadruple clicking is better in theory but harder to execute in practice) and stick with that if I am planning to continually issue new waypoints every couple of seconds. If I want my tanks to all change direction in a very significant way or to attempt to surround the enemy tanks, I will often hold Q and click on a location far away from my tanks and click many times on that location.
The reason that it is better to click multiple times while holding down Q is not totally clear, but it appears that if you click multiple times while holding down Q, it is more likely that all of your tanks pick up the waypoint and actually move in the desired direction. The issue appears to possibly be related to lag in multiplayer games. If you play by yourself in skirmish mode, for example to do one of the GQ medal challenges or platinum medal challenge with GQ, clicking just once seems to be sufficient almost always, but in multiplayer games multiple clicks seems to be significantly better.
The reason that you might want to keep holding Q and clicking on the same location a lot of times, i.e., more than 2 or 3 or 4, is that tanks calculate their drive paths based on the current state of the map. The tanks will compute the list of squares to which they will move in order to get to the target location, and will not update the path if things change while moving unless they run into obstacles (TODO: Find source code to verify this). If you hold down Q and click a whole bunch of times onone location for a full second, it is possible that some of your tanks will have started moving, and some of them will recalculate better drive paths.
Ok, so we’ve got the basics (1) issue Q waypoints to only 1 location at a time before resetting with SGQ and (2) click multiple times on the same location while issuing the Q waypoint.
Shifting with GQ
The next big, basic question to ask about GQ technique, is how to shift when using GQ?
I recommend not attempting to shift every tank when producing at top speed. The reason is that there is a trade off between getting tanks to the battle field and effectively controlling them when they are on the battlefield. I would suggest trying to get into a rhythm of shifting every 3-6 tanks (4 seems like a good number). So the rhythm you will get into when GQing will look something like this: click make tank, SGQ, click make tank, SGQ, click make tank, SGQ, click make tank, SGQ, click make tank, shift, repeat.
When shifting, you can probably do just fine with the sequence WER shift 1 ctrl 1, although I personally have found that I like to stack shift some too, i.e., WER, click on empty square near battle to get tanks moving, shift 1, ctrl 1. If you let the number of tanks at your war factories build up then stack shifting is probably a good idea, but if you don’t let them build up much, you don’t need to bother with it as they will still be coming out of the war factory anyway when you click.
One might also wonder whether there is a trade off to clicking the make tank button more slowly so that you can focus more on GQ waypoints. I say no. Click the make tank button like your life depends on it. Have your mouse in position to make the click before the previous tank even finishes if you can. Whoever produces the most the fastest wins!
Where to Issue Q Waypoints?
The next big question is where exactly should you issue your Q waypoints? I would suggest keeping several things in mind when deciding where to issue your Q waypoints.
- South Advantage rules
- Usually cluster your tanks - Most of the time you want to keep your tanks close together and not let them spread apart - think of GQing as trying to move a stack around
- When lacking south advantage, generally keeping your tanks east/west of enemy tanks and Qing in an up and down pattern works well, though when Qing in this up down pattern, try not to let your tanks get high up enough that the opponent can slide under you.
- Sometimes it is ok to Q a little bit back if u need to retreat, and sometimes a little bit forward, particularly if u can get under the enemy
- In some cases when lacking south advantage, GQing over top of enemy tanks and attempting to surround them works well
- At some times it is ok to GQ directly into the enemy tanks
South Advantage
Probably most people reading this guide already know that almost all units in red alert can fire approximately 1 square higher to the north than they can to the south or east or west. This is such a huge advantage that it should always be an overriding consideration in determining where to Q. GQ in large tank fights is all about getting a numbers advantage, and taking south and getting all the extra guns in will basically be a guaranteed win.
Keep your tanks close together and Q up and down in east vs west
This is very easy to screw up with GQ. If you issue waypoints that are farther away from your group, i.e., 2-3+ squares away from the edge of your tank ball, you will see that many tanks run off and the group will split up. This is bad to have your tanks scatter for a number of reasons. Probably the biggest reason is that if your tanks scatter, when you issue the next GQ command, you will have many tanks farther away from the enemy, and thus you will have fewer tanks firing. One way to help get your tanks to recluster if they scatter is issue two consecutive Q waypoints in the same area. A second reason that it is particularly bad is that if your tanks scatter, it is easier for the enemy to move in and destroy them if the enemy has managed to cluster their tanks well.
I would suggest trying to keep your Q waypoints usually very close to the edge of your tank blob. If you are in an east vs west battle, alternate between (1) Q waypoints right above your tanks and close to the enemy tanks and (2) Q waypoints right at the base of your tanks close to the enemy tanks. If you need to retreat and Q backwards, try not to let your group spread itself too thin
Qing Over Top of Enemy Tanks
Most of the time you should keep south advantage, but there are probably two times when going north over enemy tanks is acceptable. One is if the enemy is stacking and the tanks are stationary. In this case you can get more useful guns into the fight while dodging enemy fire. The second time when it is ok to Q on top of the enemy tanks is when you are in the lead and ready to destroy them rapidly.
GQing directly into the enemy tanks
This is generally a very bad idea, but it is a great idea if you are ahead and want to finish them off.
GQ for Rush Defense
The basic idea to using GQ for rush defense is quite simply to press GQ while your tanks are directly in front of or close to the enemy tanks, then issue a Q waypoint in the direction the enemy tanks are moving which is presumably towards your base. This can be highly effective because you can target lots of tanks at once and not just focus on trying to get the lead tank which may be difficult to click on. Also it can help keep your tanks in better position as your tanks move back into your base while continuing to fire. It is extremely helpful.
Also, when light tanks attack, I have found that clicking on light tanks to Q is a huge pain. They move fast. If I’m having trouble clicking on them, sometimes I just GQ and that works ok. It also slows them down as they take damage so you can have an easier time clicking on them after delivering some damage.
GQ in Smaller Tank Battles
I have had mixed success, but generally positive success using GQ in smaller tank battles, particularly soviets vs allies. Allied tanks are hard to target, particularly light tanks, but medium tanks are hard to target too, and they move faster than heavies. GQ seems to get more shots off in total compared to my Qing, though it could be that I just Q somewhat lousily, or maybe I GQed too much. Regardless, here are my observations.
The best way to GQ in smaller tank battles is to try to (1) keep your tanks together and (2) separated from the enemy, positioned just at the edge of the firing range if possible, but this is hard to maintain. Generally just keeping the tanks mostly together and relatively separate is good.
It is good to keep your tanks together because it is more likely that they will target the same enemy when put into guard mode. It is good to keep them at the edge of the firing range for several reasons. First, there is a greater probability that they will pick the same target as the number of targets they have will be more limited than if they are just mixed in with the enemy tanks. Second, if they are separate from the enemy you can keep them moving better. Another reason it is good to keep them separate from the enemy is that it slows the rate at which your tanks receive damage making it harder for Q’s advantage of smaller time to first kill to kick in, and also buying time, which can be helpful if your goal is to get to a state where the game has become a GQ game if u think you are the better GQer. Buying time can be very valuable for many reasons; two major ones that come to mind is that buying time evens the playing field in GQ vs Q, and second, perhaps something really good will happen for you in the game, like your opponent’s money will run out.
One of the key things to note about GQing in small numbers is to KEEP YOUR TANKS MOVING, especially if yourgoal is to buy time.
Additional Random Thought - Maybe GQ + Q
works well
It might be a good idea in a tank fight where GQ is generally not appropriate, i.e., small numbers, to initially start with GQ then switch to regular Qing. The reason this might be a good idea is that after the initial bout with GQ, a number of the opponent’s tanks will be damaged, and damaged tanks do not move as fast as undamaged tanks. This will make targeting them with regular Qing easier. I haven’t tried this out much, but I just got this idea tonight, 6/30/2020.
FAQ
Do you have to wait between the time you press G and when you issue your Q waypoint?
What happens if I click on one of my own tanks while holding down Q?
A Brief History of GQ
This is courtesy of Nate Diaz:
["...] You're welcome :). I think noting some history on the development on GQ would be fair to other stakeholders. The initial origin is somewhat unclear. ORA-Cle (cousinsucky) noted that ORA-ssanai used it during the early days of MPlayer, and JCFarmer noted it in his guide http://members.tripod.com/red_alert_website/tactics/tips&tricks.htm. cousinehy was using it defensively before his retirement and either he or Lovehandles added it to Milo's guide. It was largely unused again until Ford rediscovered it during his duel with RC in Q master max https://c9andrewford.blogspot.com/2017/04/fords-quick-q-move-secret-improve.html. This was the first documented offensive usage of GQ. Following this, Lovehandles shared his discovery of click-GQ with me which was more effective at making tanks obey your commands (the reason for this was unclear at the time). We tested it, and I considered S as an alternative after watching Ford use S to make ore trucks move faster. It appeared to have the same effect as click, and I found it easier to use. Whilst I was developing SGQ, Blitz was using already using click GQ (I am not sure if he discovered it himself, or Lovehandles shared it with him) and dominated Q Master Max with another mysterious player called Green. I am unsure what Green was doing, but he/she appeared to shift every tank to the middle of the battle, meshing up his tanks relentlessly with yours. [..."]
Notes to Self about Qing - Who knows if any of this is valuable information for anyone else? This is just me rambling
These are my personal musings and thoughts while playing games of Q 10v10. Don’t know if any of this is reasonable. Need to keep practicing.
Get yourself super hyped up to click fast and move your mouse really fast. Move fast. Click a lot while holding down Q, especially with soviet tanks. Target the next tank once the shot that will kill the previous tank has been fire but before it lands so that u can get on the next target faster.
After spending one night Qing like total crap, I was wondering wtf is going on, then I figured it out. The secret to Qing really well is to click like you’re a mad man. Click like crazy. Click really fast on the enemy tank, then click really fast to issue the q waypoint with a double/triple/quadruple click, then move the mouse super fast back to the battle ground to try to target the same/next tank. If u Q perpendicular to the flow of the enemy you are more likely to physically pick off and force some of the enemy tanks to stop. CLICK LIKE CRAZY. MOVE THAT MOUSE. CLICK A TON ON THE SCREEN BEFORE THE BATTLE TO GET YOURSELF HYPED UP!
Clicking the target to make sure all the guns are on it is important. Maybe clicking it multiple times every round of shots from all the tanks. Tanks have a reloading period. Click again before they reload if u can.
Possibly it is easier to Q from left because the tendency is to keep the cursor in the middle of the screen. As such if u are Qing from right side, you will have less room to maneuver your mouse than on the left.
Maybe it is better to issue Q waypoints close to the target tank rather than farther away from the target tank because then you can get back to shooting and picking out the next target faster. It will be easier to select the next target because your mouse will be closer and have less distance to move so it will be much easier to move the mouse to target the next enemy. Also, you can get your tanks moving again faster, but not as far. Q waypoints far away from the target tank require more mouse movements to get back to the next target. On the other hand Q waypoints farther away from the target could get your tanks to move for longer thus being more likely to dodge enemy fire, but then the target will get out of range and it will be harder to pick the next target out. Also if your Q waypoints are closer to the target then your tanks will be closer to the enemy which could be both good at bad keeping more of your tanks in firing range but also giving the enemy more targets to choose from.
If you are Qing in one direction and find it is wrong, perhaps reversing and going in the exact opposite direction is good in some cases. Also going in the opposite direction of the enemy isn’t bad, nor is cutting the enemy tanks off in the middle by moving perpendicularly to their line of movement and cutting off some easy targets.
New thought, follow the target you want with your mouse and click on it when it finally stops. Back and forth, one direction, then reverse direction.
Maybe with soviet tanks it’s better to focus on the next target whereas with allied tanks it’s better to put the waypoints slightly farther apart due to the speed differences and the fact taht it takes more shots to kill the enemy.dd
... .""
For allarroundness has to be pointed towards the descriptions of two videos, which together can be named: SGQ according to N8Diaz (video_1, video_2). A smart reader may include all the information in his own practice and shall overcome a current plateau in tanking.
We do appreciate commenting bellow!
P.S. I want to add a remark on the copyright question of this article, before any hater out there might bring it up. a) A quote in a scientific sense is generally allowed, if the source is given properly and the individual achievement of the original author not at all taken away, neither gained monetarily any kind of benefit. The second is fully correct, as this site has no commercial-programs, so gains literary nothing from it. b) Furthermore, as can be clearly read through the guide, it is written completely in a sense of sharing wisdom and experience; shows even own openness and self questioning. To hide such a guide, written for the RA-community, from same community, would be opposing the author's intention. Reversed, to make it accessible is in its intention. c) In case the guide was not written by milo234, an alleged and till now hiding author will do somehow hard of proving authorship. d) In case, as we suspect, the notes are written by milo234, an approval would be nice – but he remains in longterm holidays. d1) The option not to publish it seems highly elitist, wants to keep like an esoteric knowledge the stuff for its own circles and is clearly against the original intention – so can be neglected. d2) Additionally, this RA-blog was read by milo234 in the past and he, directly gave his acknowledgments. Same thing can said by other famous guidists: jcfarmer enjoyed and commented on some articles bellow; lovehandles and funkyfresh were readers in their active time; ford was contributor; blitz behind the curtains lives to give some detailed commenting and add-on wishes and on and on. To sum it up, the publishing is most probably not-not in the correct intention of the author. Duplex negatio affirmat.
